Last week, Al Manakh published their piece on Abu Dubai that has featured previously in the amazing book that they published. Mishaal Al Gergawai puts together and interesting case as to how Dubai and Abu Dhabi will come together, as can be seen from the maps of "abu dubai" at Al Manakh:
"In 2008, when Abu Dhabi and Dubai were both investing heavily in infrastructure, restructuring executive authorities and launching new initiatives on an almost weekly basis, it was already evident that the two cities were heading in a direction that neither of them had envisaged or openly admitted. Other nations had been able to maintain separate administrative and commercial capitals but with greater distances between them: Beijing-Shanghai (1,067 kilometers), Berlin- Frankfurt (432 kilometers) and New York-Washington DC (337 kilometers). With 120 kilometers separating them, Abu Dhabi and Dubai were destined to run up into each other. And that distance had already dwindled; their expanding outer regions, measuring from Jebel Ali to Shahama, were within 80 kilometers of each other. The result was turning out to be Abu Dubai, the then unspoken name of a metropolis phenomenon that recharged both of its halves."
Why does Gergawi think it will happen? It's the inevitable. The land mass is there and eventually it will become one:
Abu Dubai: a city never founded yet had to be. The cities remain officially Abu Dhabi and Dubai, and each maintains a municipal government. Yet among the public – as well as some academicians, historians, urban planners and a few other groups – they are referred to as Abu Dubai. What does it mean? Some cynics say it is the result of a circumstantial urban merger while romantics call it the maturing of two cities that together became more than what each could ever be alone. Debates aside, the fact remains that Abu Dubai is a sum and interaction of districts and islands from Musafah to Nahdah. Integration and synthesis continue.
Al Gergawi's prediction of the future holds many truths. And there is a chance that a future generation will see the benefits. Being one but different. Stronger together. Al Imarat.
In the mean time, here is Abu Dhabi and what it represents:
He finally returns to the UK after managing to find some wasta. This case highlights the issues with debt, cheques and the problems that come with banking in the UAE, in this case with Emirates NBD.
